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I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: modern-day racists are lazy. They’re lazy in their spelling. They’re lazy in naming their children. And lest you think they’re only lazy when it comes to things that are difficult or require a certain amount of thinking, they’re even lazy when it comes to their pastimes, to activities that only serve to please, like building snowmen, for instance.

Take, for example, Rush Limbaugh whinging yesterday about how FOX News wasn’t translating a speech given by Hu Jintao, which resulted in Rush’s dumb ass only being able to make out a bunch of unintelligible ching chong:

I mean, he’s not even giving racism the old college try! This racism is so bald, not even the anti-political correctness crowd could give it a pass. This racism is even beneath young children. This kind of racism is just lazy.

Peeps have gotten pretty riled up after watching Sony’s new commercial, which features Justin Timbersnake and Peyton “If there’s a commercial nearby, I’ll be in it” Manning speaking “Mandarin” over a competitive ping pong match.

But after watching the spot, we realized that all the wacky flurryfaloo is actually the result of those darn subtitles being written up incorrectly! Yup, it may have seemed like the guys were ching-chonging us with Mandaran-ish gibberish, but that’s just not so! Nuh uh!

How do we know? We asked a linguistics expert, a guy we found on the street like to call Mandarin Mike.

Expert Mandarin Mike says hello!

Expert Mandarin Mike explained to us that although the Colts QB and “Dick In A Box” singer struggle with their accents, what they’re really trying to say is:

You may recall how, in 2003, before Shaquille O’Neal and Yao Ming’s first meeting on the NBA hardwood, Shaq attempted to reach across cultural lines and communicate with the then-rookie from China, saying on a FOX Sports show: “Tell Yao Ming, ‘ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh.’”

To which Yao responded, “Chinese is hard to learn. I had trouble with it when I was little.”

But that was then, and this is nao, and when Shaq took a trip to the People’s Republic this month, he showed just how far he’s come in speaking China’s native tongue and understanding its culture.

This may still sound like ching-chong to you, but there’s no denying Shaq’s conversational tone has improved. And Mandarin, as everyone knows, is all about tone. So Shaq must be one cunning linguist. (That, or he has some sneakers to shill.)

Asians hate apologizing. Because it means we have to admit we were wrong. And we hate being wrong as much as we hate apologizing, which is why we excel at stuff to painstakingly avoid it. Our parents also never taught us the distinction between apologizing and flogging ourselves; when we were wrong as kids, we’d have to apologize for the ages. Literally. Like for stuff we did years ago, that we had already apologized for, not to mention the stuff we did five minutes ago. Then we’d have to admit that we fucked up not because, y’know, we occasionally dabbled in bad behavior or that we were, um, children, but because of some deep dark character flaw that we would have to spend the rest of our lives rectifying. Which then sent us into some horrible shame spiral about our “true” selves. It was all very grim, punishing, and Catholic, like Meryl Streep’s character in the movie Doubt, but if it taught us one thing, it was that WE. ALWAYS. HAVE. TO. DO. BETTER.

All this is just to say that we get how hard it is to say you’re sorry. It’s so much easier to, like, shoot an elephant. So when we heard this morning that you’d apologized for giving us the chink-eye, we were pleased, to say the least. Relieved too, because we were exhausted from reading all of the lazy, unexamined responses to the chink-eye picture that told us to “lighten up” or that our eyes “really look like that” or that, apropos of nothing, we’re just mad because our dicks are so teeny. You see, therein lies the problem: when you have a really famous person doing a really racist gesture–and we can’t believe we have to spell this out in the year 2009–it opens the floodgates. It makes it okay to hate. It gives a greenlight to people to air out, inflate, and disseminate their prejudices with impunity.

“Ive also been told there are some people upset about some pictures taken of me with friends making goofy faces! Well, Im sorry if those people looked at those pics and took them wrong and out of context!

In NO way was I making fun of any ethnicity! I was simply making a goofy face. When did that become newsworthy? It seems someone is trying to make something out of nothing to me. If that would of been anyone else, it would of been overlooked! I definitely feel like the press is trying to make me out as the new ‘BAD GIRL’!”

I feel like now that Britney is back on top of her game again, they need someone to pick on! Lucky me! haha Anyway, I just wanted to let you guys know what is on my heart. You guys know me and have been by my side every step of the way!

You guys know my heart and know the most important things to me are my friends, family, fans, and GOD! In NO WAY do I want to disappoint any of you! But, when I have made mistakes in the past, I feel like Ive owned up to them and apologized.

Anyway, I really wish everyone would stop focusing on my personal life and get back to focusing on what I love! Music and Acting! Hopefully, I will be touring again this fall! Yayy! =] It will be a nice change to be back out on the road again! xoxo Blessings.. Miley =)”

“Im sorry if those people looked at those pics and took them wrong and out of context!“?

Never begin an apology with “I’m sorry IF.” That makes it a conditional and half-assed. That’s like saying, “I’m sorry if I offended you. You think I offended you, but I don’t, and I refuse to think about this further because I’m right and you’re wrong. Who wants ice cream?” If you apologize, you have to own it.

Also, never lie in an apology. “I was simply making a goofy face.” No, you weren’t. You were giving us the chink-eye, an internationally-recognized symbol of unwelcome, like the reverse pineapple. The guy who’s making a peace sign and covering his mouth behind your hirsute boyfriend knows it. And your token Asian friend, who’s the only person not giving us the chink-eye because, deep down, underneath the hair product and the “I’m-just-happy-to-be-here” attitude, he understands on an inchoate level that you’re really laughing at him, and not with him…he knows it, too.

Furthermore, don’t leave things unsaid in an apology. If you’re going to blame the context, you’re obliged to provide the context. But in what context is giving the chink-eye acceptable? Are you going to feign like the Spanish Basketball Team and try to pass it off as a “loving” gesture? Were you and your friends doing an impromptu staging of Miss Saigon (we’ll admit we love that musical for the helicopter rescue)? Or were you just high, as a lot of people are saying you were? Marijuana is always a lousy excuse for bad behavior. And don’t hide behind the word “context.” Context doesn’t make it right.

How do we know so much about apologizing, when we’re so loath to do it? Well, we’ve had a lot of practice. And also, we’re Asian, and, like we said before, we excel at things because we don’t like to fuck up, make mistakes, and get sent down a horrible shame spiral. If you really want to be like us, Miley, get your fingers out of your eyes, and start doing the same.

I started doing acupuncture again this week, in yet another boring effort to deal with my insomnia. The acupuncture lady came to my house, and we sat down before our session to talk about my medical history. When she asked me what my “chief complaint” was, I felt like Brando in The Wild One: Whaddya got? My tough-guy impersonation didn’t last long, and soon after, I burst into tears, as I often do when talking to medical professionals looking for concrete explanations to a problem that’s plagued me since I was 11 years old.

The Chinese herbs she put me on arrived today by UPS. I ripped open the box, mistaking it for the rhinestone brooch I recently won on eBay (I’m really into old lady-jewelry at the moment). Instead, I got this: